Posts Tagged ‘stronger’

[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know what’s fantastic about the new Feminist Frequency video—I mean really, REALLY fantastic—is it dispels in an instant the entire Anita Sarkeesian victimhood narrative—you know, the one where she’s only being targeted for being A WOMAN:

[0:19] Anita Sarkeesian: “-it’s actually men going after women in really hostile, aggressive ways. THAT’s what GamerGate is about. It’s about, like, terrorizing women for being involved in this industry.”

[0:30] Sarkeesian: “-you know, we have this larger culture in gaming. We’re a subset of—mostly male gamers have been viciously going after women and attacking them.”

[0:41] Sarkeesian: “-again, what I’ve described to you today is not unique to me in my experience. Every day, many women voicing their opinions online deal with a similar flood of slander and defamation designed to undermine their careers, their credibility, their resolve, and their confidence.”

[0:55] Thunderf00t: Remember, the reason she turns off comments is because of the harassment she receives as a woman:

[1:01] Anna Akana: “As unsettling as all of this is, the thing that disturbs me the most is the kind of personal backlash that Anita and her channel have faced. She’s had to turn off her comments and hide her like/dislike ratio. This is not okay. Please watch this video, and share.”

[1:15] Thunderf00t: But of course, if a man were to make exactly the same video, he would get no, um, harassment, right? Because only women get, uh, harassment, because they’re women, and it’s nothing to do with the outrageous dishonesty or the utterly stupid things that they say:

[1:33] Feminist Frequency: “We must remember that games don’t just entertain. Intentional or not, they always express a set of values and present us with concepts of normalcy.”

[1:51] Thunderf00t: Yeah, of course. If a man said something completely stupid, everyone would instantly take it “seriously” because he’s got a penis:

[2:00] Rick Perry: “I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a Christian. But you don’t need to be in the pew every Sunday to know that there’s something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military, but our kids can’t openly celebrate Christmas, or pray in school.”

[2:13] Thunderf00t: Which is exactly what FullMcIntosh says at the end:

[2:19] Jonathan McIntosh: “Because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”

[2:27] Thunderf00t: No, if a moronic man says something stupid, it’s taken no more seriously than if a moronic woman says something completely stupid. DEAL WITH IT. Cute thing is though, apparently Jonathan here so strongly believed that he would get no harassment for being a man and saying stupid shit, that he also took the precaution of disabling comments and ratings. After all, someone’s got to keep the world safe from the horror of free expression.

[2:56] Oh, and, by the way fellas, if you’re gonna herd people up to read stuff off an Autocue, at least move them far enough away from the Autocue that you can’t see that they’re READING IT OFF AN AUTOCUE. ‘Cos that kind of dispels the whole idea that these are, ‘honest people who really believe what they’re saying’.

[3:13] Then the fact that they all look like they’ve been selected and dressed by a PR company to represent a ‘white demographic’ of Joe everyman—I’m sure is pure coincidence. That said, I did recognize this guy who writes songs about feminism.

[3:29] Now firstly, I gotta give the guy credit. He does leave his ratings and his comments open, which does show a degree of maturity and honesty. And just like FullMcIntosh said, the message becomes instantly credible when it’s delivered by a guy. Right? . . . Oh.

[3:47] Nope, apparently a dumb message typically gets a bad rating no matter what your chromosomes are. You know, it’s almost like the flak that Anita Sarkeesian gets is nothing to do with the fact that she’s a woman, and it is in reality due to the fact that her premise that “videogames cause sexism” is about as bogus as Jack Thompson’s premise that “videogames cause violence”:

[4:15] clip: “-game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of nine federal courts have rejected so-called “studies” that videogames cause aggression.”

[4:23] Thunderf00t: which it turns out FullMcIntosh also believes: “Scientific consensus is that playing violent videogames increases aggression and aggressive behaviors. Amazing so many people are in denial” (radicalbytes).

[4:35] Yeah, right. Sure, people will just instantly take you seriously if only you’ve got a penis:

[4:42] McIntosh: “-because it was created by a straight, white man, this checklist will likely be taken more seriously than if it had been written by virtually any female gamer.”

[4:50] Thunderf00t: You muppets. But hey, I guess it’s a hard life spending a $160,000 on a project that raised 25 times more money than it needed:

[0:00] Thunderf00t: You know, Anita Sarkeesian has recently found herself in some goood company. According to her, just like Jack Thompson and Glenn Beck, games are actually a direct and significant influence on people’s behavior.

[0:14] So Glenn Beck was convinced that just merely pushing the buttons on the gaming control in the game Watch Dogs was actually teaching people how to hack mobile phones and computers!

[0:24] clip from “Glenn Beck: Violent Video Games”: “Watch Dogs allow the players to hack into cell phones, ATMs, drawbridges, even helicopters, to wholly envelop the lives of others . . . the idea here is they’re teaching you to hack, and then become the ultimate voyeur in other people’s lives—including their bedrooms—by hacking into their phones, and everything—everything that we talked about.”

[0:51] Thunderf00t: And Jack Thompson was declared by Machinima to be the number one enemy of gaming for his long history of claiming that video games actually teach people how to become school shooters.

[1:03] clips from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”, “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”, “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”,: “Though the 130 million dollar suit was dismissed, Thompson is still convinced that these images inspired three murders.”
[1:10] “NUUMBER OOONE! Jack Thompson! Disbarred attorney Jack Thompson has long been an advocate against obscenity in pop culture . . . But this Jack Thompson fella, he sees obscenity as something different than you or I. Basically ANYTHING that offends his own delicate personal sensibilities. Over the years he’s sued or threated 2 Live Crew, N.W.A, MTV, Madonna, and recently he’s turned his attentions towards the video games.”
[1:36] “To him, this is not entertainment. It is a murder simulator.
[1:41] “Once a person is reduced to the status of objecthood, violence against that object becomes intrinsically permitted.”
[1:47] “You’re kicking, punching”
[1:49] “Violability occurs when, as Nussbaum points out, the objectifier treats the object as lacking in boundary-integrity, as something that it is permissible to break up, smash, break into.”
[2:01] “Ultimately shooting, cutting the heads off of people with machetes of people you don’t even know and don’t have a motive to be violent against.”
[2:07] “Since these women are just objects, there’s no need or reason for players to have any emotional engagement with them. Meaningful relationships or interactions are not even possible.”

[2:16] Thunderf00t: Indeed, not only did Machinima declare him the “number one enemy of gaming,” they claim that he was the ultimate end-game villain:

[2:24] clip from “Top 10 Enemies of Gaming”: “He is the ultimate level-boss to the gaming industry. Using videogames as scapegoat for tragic school-shootings, he said: “In every school shooting, we find that kids who pull the trigger are video gamers.
“He even suggested that the PS2 controller’s vibrations help condition gamers’ minds to enjoy killing.”

[2:42] Thunderf00t: Now Anita Sarkeesian must have watched all of this with a deep sense of envy, because she has declared herself to be the ultimate villainess—ah, sorry—correction, she claims that gamers have declared her to be the ultimate villainess.

[2:59] clip from TEDx Talks, “Anita Sarkeesian at TEDxWomen 2012”: “So, in their minds, they concocted this grand fiction in which they’re the heroic players of a massively multiplayer online game, working together to take down an enemy; and apparently, they casted me in the role of the villain.”

[3:12] Thunderf00t: Oh, I know, vanity and aspirational victimhood in one package. Yeah, damn straight, Anita Sarkeesian is pretty much exactly what you would expect from an unholy hybrid of Jack Thompson and that crazy woman from Amy’s Baking Company:

[3:29] clip from “Kitchen Nightmares Amy Bouzaglo Season 6 Episode 16 Part 1”: “I have issues with customers that are trying to be online bullies and say horrible things.”
“Online bullies?”
“I told them, I thought he was a loser, he was a moron.”

[3:38] Thunderf00t: So Jack Thompson claims that video games CAUSE SHOOTINGS. Glenn Beck claims that videogames CAUSE HACKING. And Anita Sarkeesian claims that videogames CAUSE SEXISM. Hey fellas, got a great question for ya: did the game Batman make you wanna dress up like a bat and fight crime as a vigilante?

[4:01] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline” “Centuries ago, it was the pamphleteers who were scolded for dragging down society. In the 50’s it was comic books, in the 60’s it was The Beatles.”

[4:10] Thunderf00t: However, meanwhile in reality with the sheer number of computer games played, the one thing that we CAN say with surety is that if there IS any link between behavior and playing computer games, it’s BLOODY weak.

[4:28] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “Game industry lobbyists are quick to point out a total of 9 Federal Courts have rejected so-called “studies” that video games cause aggression.”

[4:35] Thunderf00t: But just so we’re clear how dishonest Anita was willing to be to come to this conclusion: she claimed that in the game Hitman: [Absolution] men were meant to get their rocks off to beating up the dancers and then controlling their dead bodies:

[4:49] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “Players are meant to derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”

[5:05] Thunderf00t: The problem was that no one who played the game DOES that. Trust me, I watched at least 40 playthroughs and none of them attacked the dancers, ‘cos in Hitman, you’re not meant to kill innocent people. Indeed, you get penalized for it. So how can Anita then claim that this game is making people sexist?

[5:26] Well, obviously she’s gotta go beat the living crap out of these virtual women herself, then drag their bodies around in a big circle—and you know it’s her doing it, because the body starts right by the body locker that she’s eventually going to put it into, and then she drags it around in a BIIIG circle over the other body to make it seem as nasty as possible. That is, in reality the only people who play Hitman as a fantasy to kill women and desecrate their bodies, are feminists like Anita Sarkeesian. Indeed, it’s kind of ironic that if you actually listen to what she says:

[6:01] clip from “Women as Background Decoration: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “-derive a perverse pleasure from desecrating the bodies of unsuspecting virtual female characters. It’s a rush streaming from a carefully concocted mix of sexual arousal, connected to the act of controlling and punishing representations of female sexuality.”

[6:16] Thunderf00t: Anita’s footage of this part of Hitman is quite literally the only footage that I’ve seen anything even remotely like this. And quite how Anita’s strange fetish for violence against women in computer games proves that games cause sexism—I’m not quite sure. But yeah, with arguments as rigorous as that, it’s quite CLEAR why she’s got the same winning ratio as Jack Thompson. I mean, Anita’s arguments here are about as convincing as suggesting that team games encourage team killing. And just to prove it, here is some POWERFUL footage of Anita going on a team killer killing spree.

[6:55] clip

[7:08] Or it’s like her going griefing in Minecraft—that’s the practice where assholes go and destroy worlds which took people DAYS to make—simply so she can claim that the game is there to encourage and reward people for going griefing in Minecraft.

[7:24] clip from “Jack Thompson on Nightline”: “And it makes him an object of scorn in the gaming world. Kids who wear ‘I hate Jack Thompson’ t-shirts can trade blows with his likeness in the game Mortal Combat.”

[7:37] Thunderf00t: Interestingly though, while Jack Thompson was being inserted into videogames as a character who could be killed in numerous, violent ways, like having his body fed through grated, grinding, bloody wheels of one sort or another—that really didn’t offend Anita’s sensibilities. Apparently men being fed into thrashing machines doesn’t count as sexism, or harassment, or online bullying. However, when someone made a much simpler version of that game with Anita:

[8:07] clip from “16×9 – Dangerous Game: Tropes vs Women bullying”: “The games are not meant as a threat. They’re not meant to intimidate. He goes on to say he was criticizing your project as a person in the media.”
“To make a game to beat me up and then hide behind this idea of ‘we’re just trying to have a conversation’—I mean, I don’t think anyone would buy that. Or anyone would think that that was an acceptable form of communication.”

[8:28] Thunderf00t: Oh no! This must be a unique hatred of women in gaming! Because remember, if there’s one thing that Anita has taught us, it’s that it’s ONLY sexist when it happens to WOMEN. Well, I’m done. Can I have another $160,000 now?

[0:23] Thunderf00t: And now following close in its footsteps we have #LikeaGirl. The format is pretty generic, you wanna get this behind-the-scenes feel to make it seem less staged and more authentic. You know, “trustworthy”. And you know, maybe get a clapper board in there or something . . . Like the girl sitting down while someone says that you’re “recording audio” . . . despite the fact that that’s the only audio used in the entire video, which, by the way, cost about $130,000 to make. And then take a point that everyone can agree with, you know, like say for instance that women on magazine covers are Photo shopped and then just hope no one spots that the title of these, um, uh, PRODUCT PLACEMENT!

[1:18] I mean I just kind of scratch my head at this one. Are these people really getting upset about people using Photoshop to make themselves seem more beautiful than they actually are, when the very product that they are trying to sell you is meant to make you appear more beautiful than you actually are?—you know, appearance-enhancing cosmetics.

[1:40] I mean, to be honest, if you don’t find this being transformed into THIS a problem, then why do you really care about the Photo shopping? And that of course is just ignoring the fact that the whole thing was just a Unilever marketing campaign time “to coincide with the expansion of Dove brand artificial appearance-enhancing cosmetic soaps and cleansers” (Wikipedia “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty”). Uh—sorry, no, nothing to do with that at all. It was just about how much Dove brand cosmetics agrees with you about just how wrong it is for other women to try to be more beautiful than they actually are.

[2:17] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”

[2:31] Thunderf00t: Now we have another corporation with an ENTIRELY philanthropically motivated message. This time they want young, confused girls—about the time they get their first period—to know that a sanitary towel manufacturer knowsand understands their problems. And it’s got nothing to do with all that hormonal shit that kicks off in a woman’s body about this time. No, it’s all down to people saying ‘throw like a girl’.

[2:57] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “So when they’re in that vulnerable time, between 10 and 12, how do you think it affects them when somebody uses ‘like a girl’ as an insult?

“I think it definitely drops their self-confidence and really puts them down, because during that time they’re already trying to figure themselves out. And-”

[3:14] Thunderf00t: Well isn’t that nice of them, to know that the corporation like this has your best interest at heart. In that sense, it’s a perfect viral advertising campaign for something that is intrinsically difficult to market.

[3:29] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but there’s no such thing as a ‘happy period’. The reality is, some people simply can’t handle the truth.”

[3:38] Thunderf00t: You get to engage with your audience without having to deal with all that icky stuff that’s usually associated with the subject.

[3:46] clip from “BodyformResponds :: The Truth”: “In the past, we tried to be more honest in our approach. In the 1980’s we ran a series of focus groups to help us gauge the public’s reaction to periods: the cramps, the mood swings, the insatiable hunger—and yes, Richard, the blood coursing from my uteri like a crimson landslide.”

[4:02] Thunderf00t: They get what they want, which is for teenage girls to have a positive association with Always sanitary towels. That is, as long as they don’t think about it too much. Buut we’ll come back to that in a second. If you wanna see how eye-rollingly badly this game can be played, just watch the Pantene commercial. Pfft. No clapperboard. Amateurs.

[4:22] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”

[4:33] Thunderf00t: -where it insists that women keep apologizing like this isn’t something that EVERYONE does just to be polite—no, no. It’s only women who ever do this. Then, of course, what if women didn’t say sorry?

[4:45] clip from “Not Sorry | #ShineStrong Pantene”

[4:59] Thunderf00t: Yes, Pantene wants you to be one of those people who never says sorry.

[5:04] clip from “ORIGINAL VIDEO – Bitchy Resting Face”: “Because if we wanted to be constantly misunderstood, we’d try and talk to a deaf person.”

[5:29] clip from “An Apology to America from Newcastle and Elizabeth Hurley”

[5:50] Thunderf00t: Buuut joking aside, and coming back to the thinking about the ‘throw like a girl’ commercial—as much admiration as I have for how well-executed this marketing campaign was, it’s still BULLSHIT. Annd maybe this would be a good time for those ‘meee tooo’ Tumblr-type feminists to get a box of Kleenex in, because if you think the expression “like a girl” is what destroys the self-confidence of young women, then a hard stare at reality will likely cause a gendered panic-attack of apocalyptic proportions.

[6:24] The expression ‘throw like a girl’ probably has its roots in fairly obviousbiology. You know, guys tend to have almost twice the upper body strength of girls (Wikipedia, “Sexual dimorphism”). I know—it’s hardly rocket science. Add in there a spot of culture. You know, girls having less historical need to throw stuff than guys. And the fact that sports mostly focus on higher, faster, and stronger; which on a level playing field, with NO SEXISM whatsoever, is actually men in every category. And you would need a very special class of feminist idiot to say otherwise:

[7:05] clip from Feminist Frequency“Damsel in Distress: Part 1 – Tropes vs Women in Video Games”: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth; which of course is completely false.”

[7:13] Thunderf00t: Aww, I know, let me taste those sweet, juicy, social-justice-warrior tears. Let me just say that again: on a level field, with NO glass ceiling and absolutely no sexual discrimination, men are faster, stronger, and better throwers. Yet, that’s not sexism you’re looking at. That’s just the reality of being a sexually dimorphic species.

[7:40] So, in demographic terms, little girls tend to be the weakest throwers of all. So guess what, this is simile—or metaphor, or whatever—for someone who throws weakly.

[7:51] Whoa—I know, rocket science! ‘But noo, the fact that little girls are the weakest throwers is clearly wrong because little staged girls in Barbie-pink and rainbow girl here can throw stuff too! to uplifting music which includes important demographics including sporty and token!’ And as with all advertising campaigns, absolutely no fattys and no uglys; because although you’re courageously battling for the self-esteem of young girls, the last thing that you want is your product associated with fat or ugly people. And the fact that you can confuse a teenage girl or actor or whatever into not understanding the difference between the meaning of ‘a girl throwing’ and the simile of ‘throw like a girl’

[8:35] clip from “Always #LikeAGirl”: “Yes, I kick like a girl, and I swim like a girl, and I walk like a girl, and I wake up in the morning like a girl because I am a girl. And, that is not something that I should be ashamed of.”

[8:45] Thunderf00t: I know, poor girl must go white with fear when someone says she’s ‘into shit’, or someone ‘eats like a pig’ or ‘I would kill for a royale with cheese’. But anyway, no—girls’ plummeting self-confidence is all down to the devastating metaphor of ‘throw like a little girl’.

[9:01] THIS is why girls’ self-confidence plummets during puberty. Well, that and of course being called bossy:

[9:08] clip from “Ban Bossy”:“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher.”

“Being labelled something matters.”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”

“And that’s because they worry about being called”

“‘bossy’”

[9:22] Thunderf00t: And as many a feminist has pointed out, when women have such heavy crosses to bear, and the fact that they think that women are such weak and fragile creatures that they really need to have to have their hands held to deal with these horrific social burdens, it must truly amaze feminists that ANY women make it to adulthood at all. All the while having that perplexed look on their face as to why the term ‘feminism’ has inexplicably acquired a reputation of being a CULT, where the only tenent is that you whinely embrace victimhood. GOOD JOB feminists. That’s EXACTLY the role model that young women need.

[10:03] But as for the viral marketing campaign, yet it struck a great blow. And it’s certainly fighting against propagating harmful stereotypes. And it’s made #LikeaGirl mean amazing things, like how you can destroy a teenage girl’s self-confidence simply by using the expression ‘throw like a girl’ or ‘bossy’.

[10:24] clip from “Ban Bossy”: “By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys.”

[0:00] Thunderf00t: This is your brain. This is your brain on a new wave of feminism:

[0:05] clip: “Bossy, bossy, bossy”

“When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

[0:21] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right, what else could possibly explain the lack of women in leadership roles but the word:

[0:27] clip: “bossy”

[0:28] Thunderf00t: And what better way to correct that than by banning a word?

[0:32] clip: “We need to help them lean in”

“Words matter”

“Let’s just ban the word ‘bossy’”

[0:38] Thunderf00t: Yes, apparently this is the latest in the string of feminist explanations to explain why there aren’t more women in certain fields. I mean, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in humans. You know, that OUTRAGEOUSLY SEXIST reason why we split up the Olympics by sex.

[1:03] Thunderf00t: Or the fact that the physical dimorphism is accompanied by behavioral dimorphism as well. You know, it’s a consequence of having that neural net we call a ‘brain’, marinaded in mostly one hormone or another—nah, it’s got nothing to do with sexual dimorphism in the behavior of humans. It’s all bound to the word ‘bossy’.

[1:23] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

[1:37] Thunderf00t: First we have those feminists, like Rebecca Watson:

[1:40] clip: “That’s right, you liberal, intellectual guy, who has a healthy interest in science and skepticism, but who finds feminism distasteful and would rather not hear about it. You are worse than rape threats”

[1:54] Thunderf00t: -who told us that sexism in Atheism was so bad, that a woman could get ASKED FOR COFFEE in an elevator. And THAT’S why there aren’t so many women in atheism. While she simultaneously thinks that starting a charity fund raiser by spitefully insulting every, single, male atheist in the audience, is just funnnny.

[2:17] clip: “I opened with a joke, referencing the fact that”

“Hello, YouTube. It’s been a while. I’ve missed you. And, I’m guessing that you’ve missed me too. Because I’ve heard that if a male atheist on YouTube goes too long without calling a woman a cunt, his balls will actually shrivel up, and then tuck up inside of him, forming what some call a ‘mangina’”

“Most people, got the joke”

“Most people, got the joke”

“Rule number one: don’t try to be funny, even though you are obviously not funny”

[2:50] Thunderf00t: Seriously, you start your video by spitting in people’s faces, and then blame the people whose faces that you’ve just spat in, for not finding it funny.

[3:01] clip: “You think that my sarcasm and feminism causes misogyny. In the same way that birds flying south for the winter causes the snow to come”

[3:11] Thunderf00t: No, Rebecca. I think that people are pissed at you, was CAUSED by you SPITTING IN THEIR FACES for exactly the same reason that I think smoking causes cancer. And then you portray the fact that they’re pissed off that you spat in their faces, as a reason why you’re persecuted, and people need to give you money. Or maybe that’s the whole point.

[3:33] clip: “I’m gonna continue speaking out about feminism and harassment of women online. Why? Because it pisses you off.

[3:40] Thunderf00t: And then we have the “pop culture critic” who doesn’t even like playing computer games, ‘cause it’s “gross”

[3:47] clip: “And also, videogames—like, I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

[3:54] Thunderf00t: -telling people that the reason that she doesn’t like computer games is because it’s “gross”. Oh, no. That won’t do at all. That doesn’t involve accusing people of sexism orblaming men. Yes, the reason she doesn’t like playing computer games is because of the “sexist depiction of women in computer games”. Especially the ones that involve:

[4:17] Thunderf00t: -an argument that is just so mind-blowingly stupid. It’s like calling Victoria’s Secret ‘sexist’ because they only make lingerie in women’s sizes, and that they don’t use an equal number of men to model their lingerie. Yes, the first-person shooter industry demographic is mostly men. Because most girls, like Anita here find that sort of thing “gross”.

[4:51] Thunderf00t: Look, Anita. Just because you CHOOSE not to play a game that doesn’t appeal to you—that doesn’t make it sexist. You choosing not to play that game DOES NOT mean that you are being discriminated against by an unquestioning boys club.

[5:05] clip: “-is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . And all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club”

“I would love to play videogames. But I don’t want to go around shooting people, and ripping off their heads. And it’s just, gross. So-”

[5:24] Thunderf00t: Just like when I choose not to go shopping for lingerie because it doesn’t appeal to me—that’s not sexism, I am not being discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club.

[5:35] Now, if that what I was after, there are FAR easier ways to get discriminated against by an unquestioning girls club. Like the one that gave you $160,000 to make some videos.

[5:46] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . Nearly seven-thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”

[6:03] Thunderf00t: Of which you’ve made four. In two years. $160,000. Or maybe that’s the whole point. Oh yeah, good business is where you find it. And selling victimhood to feminism is just as easy as selling a persecution complex to the religious.

[6:25] clip: “Listen, we have an outstanding broadcast here today. I took the time to do a compilation concerning Christian persecution in America. Check this out:

[6:35] Thunderf00t: And almost as profitable.

[6:37] clip: “There is coming a time very quickly here in America that we will not be able to bring this gospel message the way we currently are. That’s why we are urging you to donate today to continue and expand the work of this broadcast ministry before the lights go out. God bless you.

[6:55] Thunderf00t: And now you get this outrageous spinoff that the reason that there aren’t as many women managers is because they don’t like being called ‘bossy’. Because apparently the patriarchy has imbued men with this unholy power not to be discouraged by being called bossy. While these feminists think that women need special treatment, because ‘they’re emotionally fragile creatures than men’. Of course, if I were to say that women are more emotionally fragile creatures and need special protection from being called ‘bossy’ they would instantly label me as outrageously sexist and misogynistic.

[7:28] clip: “-horrible bigots, like Thunderf00t”

[7:31]: But these feminists think they are showing just how well women can compete on a level playing-field by saying that women are too emotionally fragile to handle being called ‘bossy’.

[7:44] clip: “When I was growing up, I was called ‘bossy’”

“I think the word ‘bossy’, is just, a squasher”

“Being labelled something matters”

“By middle school, girls are less interested in leadership than boys. And that’s because they worry about being called ‘bossy’”

[7:58] Thunderf00t: Ah, the face palm fails me. Look, let me say it once. Let me say it loud and let me say it clear: humans are a sexually dimorphic species. MEN and WOMEN are BIOLOGICALLY different. Which MAY or MAY NOT mean, that women are more biologically, emotionally fragile.

[8:21]: However, what we call ‘fair’ in society is equality of opportunity. Which in a sexually dimorphic species DOES NOT guarantee equality of outcome. In simple, simple terms the reason that it’s men who invariably end up shifting a couch up the stairs, is NOT because of sexism. Men are not conspiring to keep the couch-moving trade the “boys only” club with all the privileges and entitlements that come with it. It’s simply that they’re physiologically better-suited for it. You know, the same reason we divide the Olympics up by sex without everyone losing their shit and calling it sexism. If you wanna call it ‘sexism’, it’s simple. You have to show that there was not equality of opportunity. ‘Cause in a sexually dimorphic species, showing inequality of outcome, just doesn’t cut it.

[9:20]: But setting aside the 1984-style aspirations of being able to control words

[9:26] clip: “This is “Ban Bossy” take one”

[9:28] Thunderf00t: Well, I wouldn’t mind so much, but one of the women they have on board was Condoleezza Rice.

[9:35] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”

[9:39] Thunderf00t: Here’s a radical notion: maybe we should BAN POLITICIANS from telling bold-faced lies to the public to take them into an unjustified war.

[9:47] clip: “There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11”

[9:51] Thunderf00t: You know, one that’ll kill tens of thousands of people.

[9:55] clip: “There are no limits”

[9:57] Thunderf00t: -BEFORE we worry about banning the word ‘bossy’. Just sayin’.

[10:02] clip: “BAN ‘bossy’ . . . Join us to ban ‘bossy’”

[10:10] Thunderf00t: Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. The U.S. Secretary of education saw this, and thought, ‘Oh, ban ‘bossy’. That’s a really good idea. I really want to be a part of that!’

[0:17] clip: “Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”

[0:21] Thunderf00t: Now, in many ways, Anita using her “pop critic skills”-

[0:26] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic”

[0:27] Thunderf00t: -to show how oppressed women are, has made it almost a very cartoony, caricature trope of the modern feminist.

[0:34] clip:

[0:48] Thunderf00t: That is, Anita has become the ‘straw feminist’. Which she has previously claimed was merely a sexist trope to undermine feminism.

[0:57] clip: “Every now and then in Hollywood-land, the character that’s identified as ‘feminist’ will magically make its way through the production process and appear on our television screens. Unfortunately, this is almost never good”
“I’ve heard it said that in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team; they are the ball”
“Hollywood writers rely on one of the most deceptive and disgusting tropes ever to be forged in the fires of Mount Doom. That trope is called the straw feminist”
“Women are being institutionally oppressed all the time, in nearly every facet of our lives”
“In television and movies, the straw feminist works by deliberately creating an exaggerated character of a feminist, which writers then fill with a bunch of oversimplifications, misrepresentations, and stereotypes”
“Because it’s basically a choose-your-own-patriarchal-adventure porno fantasy”

[1:42] Thunderf00t: That is, she is not challenging stereotypes. She is reinforcing and fitting into them.

[1:47] clip: “The goal is to make feminists and our movements look completely ridiculous, over-the-top, and unnecessary.”
“It’s an old, yet effective tactic. But clearly it’s working. Because I often hear young women say, ‘I believe in the equal right of women. But, I’m not a feminist’”

[2:01] Thunderf00t: Now, personally speaking, so, broad egalitarian—you know, someone who thinks that everyone should be treated fairly—not just women. I like to use words like oppression to mean things like, this:
Or, words like ‘patriarchy’ to describe cultures like this:

[2:18]: To use the word ‘patriarchy’ to describe situations like this:

[2:22] clip:

[2:30] Thunderf00t: -merely reduces the word to a trivial level of first world problems.

[2:35] And believe me, no one has done more, or worked harder, to undermine the impact of these words, than modern feminists like Anita Sarkeesian.

[2:51] Thunderf00t: for instance, Anita wants to uh, research games, of all things to find out just how much society is oppressing her.

[2:59]: Now, in science where we’re genuinely interested in discovering the unknown, we have a tradition. That is, you start with the research. And that after you’ve done the research, you draw your conclusions. This is the antithesis, of things like creationist research, where you start with the conclusions, and then you go to research things to show that your initial prejudice was correct. And this is also how Anita Sarkeesian does “research”. That is, she starts with the conclusion:

[3:30] clip: “Many games tend to reinforce and amplify sexist and downright misogynist ideas about women”

[3:36] Thunderf00t: And then asks for funding to go and do the “research”, to support these prejudices.

[3:41] clip: “As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research. This is an incredibly ambitious project, because of the scope and scale of the research and production involved. So please donate any amount you can”

[3:53] Thunderf00t: Now in her first video, she seemed to particularly pick on Mario.

[4:08] Thunderf00t: There’s just one problem with the Mario example. Mario, just so we are clear is an Italian plumber. It really is hard to think of a more underrated, underprivileged, disposable, and instantly forgettable male.

[4:26]: Peach, on the other hand is A PRINCESS. Well, no privilege there then. Oh, I’m sorry. Did your pop culture critic feminist and womanly skills miss that?

[4:38] clip: “Now, I’m a pop culture critic. I am a feminist, and I’m a woman”
“Because, you know, nothing is worse in a patriarchal society than being a woman. Except maybe being a feminist”

[4:48] Thunderf00t: I’ll make this simple for you, Anita. Really, really simple. You claim as a hypothesis all you want, that woman not being portrayed as you want in video games, is making society misogynistic.

[5:02] clip: “The pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak, ineffective, or ultimately incapable, has larger ramifications beyond the characters themselves, and the specific games they inhabit . . . We have to remember that these games don’t exist in a vacuum. They’re an increasingly important and influential part of our larger social and cultural ecosystem . . . The reality is, this trope is being used in a real-world context, where backwards sexist attitudes are already rampant”

[5:27] Thunderf00t: Just like you could claim that Pokémon is set in a real-world situation:

[5:32] clip: “Pokémon—plural—are incredible creatures that share the world with humans. Each has his own fighting abilities.”

[5:40] Thunderf00t: And is Satan’s way of getting at your children. In a world that is already rampantly anti-Christian.

[5:46] clip: “So Pokémon is a game, that teaches children how to enter into the world of witchcraft, how to cast spells, how to use psychic phenomena, how to put to work supernatural powers against their enemies, how to fantasy-role-play. . . Pokémon world is a world of the demonic, of the satanic. While you might not take it quite seriously, I assure you that demons take it quite seriously”

[6:11] Thunderf00t: However, merely stating a hypothesis, no matter how vocally, doesn’t make it true.

[6:18]: You fail to realize that you’ve yet to demonstrate any effect that these videogames have on people’s behavior. And until you do, you might as well be claiming that Pokémon are the ‘devil’s way of getting at your children’.

[6:32]: Hell, the people who claim that videogames make people more violent have a far better case than your claim that they make people sexist. And their claims have thus far, proved to be all but inconsequential.

[6:45]: The problem is of course, that people have claimed since time immemorial that violent fantasy media makes people more violent. Problem is of course, with the huge amount of violent video games played, there appears to be no clear correlation of violence in society. Meaning that any social vector, if it exists at all, is small. And they have a far, far, FAR stronger case than you do. Really, really, simple Anita.

[7:14]: Playing Assassin’s Creed does not increase your chances of becoming an assassin; because it’s a fantasy game.

[7:22]: The fact that you kill hundreds of people in this game, doesn’t make you any more likely to be a killer, than the fact that you died hundreds of times means that you won’t mind dying anymore. Because fundamentally, people can distinguish between reality and fantasy.

[7:38]: So, really, Anita. Where is your demonstration that the generation that enjoyed getting this Italian plumber, to rescue this princess from a giant turtle monster that are any more likely to be sexist? EXACTLY. These games are about as likely to make you sexist, as they are likely to make you think that violence against turtles is acceptable.

[8:04]: And this is why the fundamental premise of your entire video series is bullshit. And it will remain to be bullshit. Until you can actually demonstrate a link.

[8:17]: This is what happens when your idea of “well-researched” is to merely go and look for patterns that support your initial prejudices.

[0:06] clip: So I announced my intentions to create a video series examining the way women are portrayed in video games. And I was attacked by a section of male gamers. And I think part of the attack was based on their attempt to preserve the status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space, and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”

[0:28] Thunderf00t: Well that’s one version of her “reality”, Anita. But here’s one that may be closer to the truth. You see, there was this gaming community that was about, well, playing games. And then you come along with this massively self-centered, and entitled behavior, throwing out these great shovels of troll-bait, saying, ‘why isn’t this gaming community pandering to my social preferences?’ Then, when you get the utterly predictable backlash of anyone who says such stupid shit online, you act surprised.

[0:58] Incidentally, Anita, I find it curious that it’s almost six months after you’ve given your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud that your fans had given you $150,000.

[1:09] clip: “I actually raised twenty-five times what I initially asked for . . . nearly seven thousand individuals contributed to make my “Tropes vs Women in Videogames” project bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”

[1:26] Thunderf00t: Now, sure, I could note it’s almost a year since this project was funded to the tune of twenty-five times what you asked for. And thus far, this project of yours, the one that’s gonna be-

[1:38] clip: “bigger, and better, and more expansive than I could ever have imagined”

[1:41] Thunderf00t: -consists of ONE single twenty-minute video. That’s all you’ve made in an entire year.

[1:50] clip: “Instead of just being five videos, it’s now thirteen videos, plus a classroom curriculum that educators can use for free.”

[1:56] Thunderf00t: And to be honest, the video that you made was of the caliber that I would estimate is about two working days of effort in it. But that’s not what I noticed here, Anita. I find it curious, in that almost six months since your TED Talk, the one which you were so proud of all the money you’d raised, and this CNN interview, which was curiously titled: “Online trolls attack feminist media critic”. Now, what I noticed is, that you’ve not only apparently not changed your outfit, or your earrings, your hairstyle—but not even one single word of your troll baiting/professional-victim routine.

[2:33] clip: “-larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space . . . was based on their attempt to preserve this status quo of gaming as a male-dominated space . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club . . . and all of the privileges and entitlements that come with an unquestioned boys club.”

[2:55] clip: “So, in their minds, they concocted this grand fiction, in which they’re the heroic players of a massively multiplayer online game, working together to take down an enemy. And apparently, they casted me in the role of the villain. And what was my big diabolical master plan? To make a series of videos on YouTube about women’s representations in games.”

[3:14] Thunderf00t: But the crazy thing is, Anita, I can find no evidence for this “grand conspiracy” anywhere outside of your head. At least, beyond your claims that it exists. In fact, a quick search for images of you online shows that the internet has been far kinder to you, than it has been to me.

[3:33] but the gaming community constitutes all walks of life: libertarians, democrats, republicans, blacks, straights, gays, whites—whatever. And in many ways, it’s the ultimate, non-discriminating, and fair playing field. Which means in the sort of games that I play, when you get into the arena, the only thing that matters is: can you shoot faster, and more accurately than your opponent? That’s the only thing that matters. There is no socially constructed oppression for you underachievers to blame your failures on.

[4:08]: Well, maybe lag. If you cannot compete in such an arena, you cannot blame this on anything, other than your lack of ability, or your lack of performance.

[4:20] clip from The Matrix and “mras and feminists arguing at u of t mra event,” Fatal1ty

[5:05] Thunderf00t: Even back in the day, when I was playing as part of a clan, we had the most incredibly diverse group I’ve ever been in. We had a gun libertarian, we had a progressive liberal. We had an immigrant Mexican, and a republican police officer. And some Ivy League researcher. This was a group I would’ve never usually met or socialized with. But in the arena, none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was I knew these people played well. And I could trust them to cover me. Especially in games like capture-the-flag. And that’s why, as a clan we played well. Because we mostly understood that we were here to play the game. Not to fight over political, or social issues.

[5:49]: That’s why it’s called The Gaming Community.

And, yeah, curiously enough, Anita you go into this community with this outrageously over entitled attitude, and expect everyone to change their behavior to service your social whims. And then, of all things, to complain when there’s a backlash against your shit-stirring antics.

[6:10]: This is the metaphorical equivalent of going in to say—oh, I dunno—a baby clothes knitting society, and start demanding that they make it less about the “privileges” and “entitlements” of the dominant and unquestioning girls club; that they make it less homophobic and more welcoming to libertarians. And then, wondering why everyone thinks you’re a shit-stirring douche. And then you turn around and say, ‘Aah! Look at that backlash to my troll-baiting. That just proooves how much sexism and homophobia there is in a baby [clothes] knitting society.’

[6:45]: But anyway, this is the part where it goes hilariously off-script:

[6:50] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?”

[6:59] Thunderf00t: Oh, you just got served, Anita. That coy little smile of: ‘oh my. She knows about trolls on the internet’. It’s almost like they read the comments on your YouTube channel, and came to the conclusion, ‘this girl is just crying wolf. She brings nothing in the way of intellectual content, so she’s playing the best card she can.’ And that’s to hold up this pathetic handful of trolling activity so she can get the attention for her professional victimhood.

[7:28] And then to claim that the community that for the large part only cares about gaming, actually has some scheming plan to keep women out of this fictitious boys club.

[7:39] clip: “larger implicit goal here is that they’re actually trying to maintain the status quo of videogames as a male-dominated space”

[8:09] clip: “What do you say about people who say, ‘don’t feed the trolls’?
“Um, I think that that is a pretty good attitude to take. Um, but I think there’s a difference between not engaging one-on-one with the trolls. I think that—I never spoke to any of the people harassing me directly . . . There’s a sort of conception that what happened to me was trolling. Um, and trolling is largely thought of as, one individual who’s trying to get a rise out of another individual. And what happened to me was really a cyber-mob, right? It was thousands of individuals coming after me who were loosely working together.

[8:45] Thunderf00t: Bullshit, Anita. You say dumb shit online, you can EXPECT to get trolled by thousands. And yeah, when you get trolled by thousands, those trolls will occasionally end up talking to each other. This isn’t a manifestation of people conspiring together to discredit you. This is just trolls, passing in the night, and laughing at the stupid shit that you’ve said.

[1:24] Thunderf00t: Yeah. That’s right. The game that ends with Marian, breaking a twenty-foot tall, super-space lich man in half like a toothpick, by punching him in the balls, is apparently:

[1:36] clip: “the pattern of presenting women as fundamentally weak”

“ineffective”

“or ultimately incapable”

“has larger ramifications beyond-”

[1:47] Thunderf00t: I think we’re gonna have a fundamental disagreement about what constitutes “well-researched” here, Anita. Now, this really wasn’t the best damsel-in-distress you could’ve used in your first “Tropes vs. Women” video.

I mean, really, did you have to start with a straw man in the title? Do you really think that tropes as specifically adversarial to women? Maybe I should title this video in a reciprocatively fair fashion. Maybe something like: ‘Feminism versus Facts’. You know, not just scoring on the parody, but on the alliteration as well.

[2:21] But like I say, Feminist Frequency’s ability to find patterns that don’t exist, is rivaled only by her ability to miss the most important, and bloody obvious pattern of all: these games are not made to keep feminists happy. These games were not designed to subjugate women. These games were designed to be fun to play, and thereby make a profit for the designer. And this is the point [that] seems to have completely eluded Feminist Frequency during her twenty minute analysis. And yeah, this does mean that in the case of the original Double Dragon, that if you’ve only got about seven seconds to explain the plot—trust me, seven seconds. I timed her—then the characters are obviously gonna tend to be fairly one-dimensional, and the storylines, simple.

The damsel-in-distress of course, is just one of the simple story lines you can set up very easily. Why? Because most people in healthy relationships care for each other and therefore, immediately willing to make significant sacrifices for their loved ones.

Indeed, the very fact that they’re willing to make such sacrifices does not show that you are thinking as your partner as the “ball” in the “game of patriarchy”-

[3:34] clip: “I’ve heard it said that in the game of patriarchy, women are not the opposing team. They are the ball.”

[3:39] Thunderf00t: -but it’s in fact a token of how much you care about them. I mean, let me just give you a couple of scenarios here, Anita. Billy’s girlfriend gets punched in the stomach, and abducted by a gang of thugs. Which of the following options defines the healthier relationship? That, he immediately sets out, risking his own safety to try and protect his loved ones. Or that he decides, ‘she’s a grown adult and can look after herself’. And then goes home to polish his car.

[4:09] clip from American Beauty: “1970 Pontiac Firebird. The car I’ve always wanted, and now I have it. I RULE!”

[4:14] Thunderf00t: Personally, Anita, I think that most women would regard the latter, as a relationship-ending lack of commitment. But Anita’s take on an abducted loved one, is a little different.

[4:26] clip: “One way to think about a damseled character is via what’s call the subject-object dichotomy. In the simplest terms, ‘subjects’ act, and ‘objects’ are acted upon. The subject is the protagonist, the one who the story is centered on, and the one doing most of the action.

So the damseled trope typically makes men the subject of narratives, while relegating women to the role of object. This is a form of objectification, because as objects, damseled women are being acted upon. Most often becoming or reduced to a prize to be won, a treasure to be found, or a goal to be achieved.”

[4:58] Thunderf00t: Or a loved one to be helped. I mean, Jesus girl, you are one sick puppy. So in your mind, if my girlfriend gets abducted, I can’t want to protect her. Or to keep her safe, without turning her into an object.

[5:12] clip: “-while relegating women to the role of object. This is a form of objectification, because as objects, damseled women are being acted upon.”

[5:19] Thunderf00t: I mean, damn. I thought I was cold. But that—that’s inhuman. Even the raptors in Jurassic Park showed more empathy than that. I mean really, by your feminist reasoning here, hospitals—you know, the places where patients come to be “acted on”—are actually ‘objectification centers’, where people are turned into merely objects to be acted on. And doctors—they’re not medical help providers. They’re the biggest objectifiers of all. Or the police. When someone gets abducted, are the police now to sit idly by because they can’t help without turning the abductee into an object? Yeah, it’s something they learned in Anita Sarkeesian’s “feminism class”. And this is the “well-researched” feminism that you weren’t taught in schools.

[6:07] Thunderf00t: Yes, it really is this simple. It’s a sign that someone cares, that they are willing to make these sacrifices.

[6:13] clip from Star Trek (2009)

[7:21] Thunderf00t: This is a concept powerfully understood by almost anyone, with a sense of human empathy. Now sure, you can overanalyze this till you come out with your desired conclusions. Like, how selfish George was to rob his pregnant wife of a sense of agency by acting on her, and turning her into an object in the game of patriarchy. But your game, not only displays an inhuman lack of empathy—it’s facile.

Look, I’m gonna use this exact scene that you take from Dragon’s Lair in your Damsel in Distress video. And use my “well-researched” “pop culture critic skills” to come up with a similarly bogus conclusion to yours:

‘Have you ever noticed how men in games, almost always fall into one of the few stereotypes or clichés? We have to remember, that this regressive sexism is turning men into one-dimensional, clueless objects incapable of solving even the simplest of problems. Like, cages are locked with keys.’

[8:23] clip from Dragon’s Lair

[8:26] Thunderf00t: ‘-without the cerebral intervention and puppeteering from an intellectually manipulative woman. It’s simply turning men into barely house-trained Neanderthal objects, for the purpose of doing the dangerous work for a woman.’

[8:52] Thunderf00t: ‘We have to understand that such derogatory stereotypes are detrimental to our society and our cultural ecosystem. But to see really how much this regressive crap degrades men, you only have to compare how many ways there are for the princess to die in this game versus the knight. That’s right, the whole game is one purpose-built, giant death-trap for the man. And whereof by some miracle he survives, he wins the honor of being puppeteered for some object by the princess.

Or, for that matter, let’s compare how many coherent sentences either can offer. The knight’s only dialogue in this entire game is screams, and of muffled screams, as he’s killed over, and over, and over again. Why couldn’t he be a thinking hero, who talks to the dragon and thoughtfully negotiates a mutually agreeable settlement? Why does this game have to dehumanize the man, by making his only course of action killing things?

[9:52] I mean you say as much in your own video. ‘Yes, it’s the “beat-‘em-up” trope being used here to propagate the socially harmful myth that men are unthinking psychopaths who can only solve problems by beating them up, or killing them. You watch this media, and yet you fail to see the blatantly misandric elements in this game. Like this woman, punching a man, as spitefully as she can in his sexually reproductive organs. It’s a deeply symbolic gesture of how much these games despise men, by causing them as much pain as possible, while simultaneously stopping them from reproducing.’

[10:32] some guy: “Awww! Right in the baaalls!”

[10:36] Thunderf00t: ‘How simple do you need this hatred of men in these games to be? Now I’m not saying that all games that employ such tropes are automatically tying to reinforce and amplify the socially harmful stereotypes that men are easily controlled, brainless, fighting, troglodytes. But this does help to normalize extremely toxic, patronizing, and demeaning attitudes about men.’

[11:04] But like I say, you can overanalyze this to you leisure until you can parlay it into whatever desired conclusions you want. But it won’t change the real fact of why these games are like they are. Because theyserve a market. It’s basically the same reason there are all these beauty magazines; because they serve a market.

[11:27] And it’s the same reason that you in your videos wear lipstick, eyeliner, nail varnish, and those big girly earrings. It’s not because you’ve made this conscious decision that women are naturally too ugly and unappealing, and therefore need to use these appearance-enhancing cosmetics. Although, I’m pretty certain that if a certain pop culture critic feminist were to be researching and analyzing your very video, she would happily bundle you into one of a few stereotypical women in the media, concluding that you’ve simply become a chill girl and sister-punisher by donning the Barbie-pink bondage-shackles-of-patriarchal-expectation by adorning yourself with attention-grabbing trinkets and by painting your face to resemble mild arousal.

[12:15] Trust me, it would be just as trivial to pin you into the role of the willing servant of this non-existent, scheming patriarchy as it was for you to parlay the damsel-in-distress into a systematic attempt to subjugate women.

No. You, like they, serve a market. The market you serve is telling feminists that they are oppressed. If you really thought there was a market for these feminist games, why not do the empowered-woman thing and lead by example, and design and market these games successfully yourself? I suspect that you know full-well that the reason these feminist games don’t exist, is not because the patriarchy is conspiring against you. It’s simply because there’s not a market for them.

[13:03] Look. Let’s be honest. We both know the free market doesn’t care what your ideology is. It only cares if it will turn a profit. Yeah. What you’re proposing is not viable. And this is why you’ve shown this masterly reluctance to cash in on this goldmine of feminist gaming that you think is out there. And this is the fundamental reason why you are a critic and not a creator. I mean, why take the risk of making a game that will almost certainly be an expensive failure, when you have this guaranteed market of selling the idea that ‘you are being systematically being oppressed by the patriarchy’, to feminists?

But the sad thing is, even if they did make this game exactly as you wanted—you know, like that game you were lamenting at the beginning of your video:

[13:52] clip: “The game was to star a sixteen year old hero named Krystal, as one of two playable protagonists. She was tasked with travelling through time, fighting prehistoric monsters with her magical staff, and saving the world. She was strong. She was capable. And she was heroic . . . Pretty cool, right? Well, it would’ve been. Except the game never got released.”

[14:18] Thunderf00t: And it’s a good thing it was never released, too. Because if it had been, it would’ve simply helped to ‘reinforce sexist, and downright misogynist ideas about women.’

You see, if your comprehensive research had included the master’s thesis of the feminist, Anita Sarkeesian . . . Oh. Well, if your research had actually included your own master’s thesis, titled, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You: Strong Women in Science Fiction and Fantasy Television”, you would’ve realized that—I’ll let this guy explain:

[14:49] clip from Instig8iveJournalism, “Anita Sarkeesian Part 1: The College Graduate: “She argues that strong, empowered, female characters still aren’t feminist because they’re only pretending to be men . . . According to her, any women in a TV show who shows strong leadership, is only doing so in a charade of strictly masculine trait . . . the second diagram illustrates what she wants TV to give her. Once again—at odds with herself. Notably, she proposes significantly fewer positive feminine traits than positive male traits, with women hilariously unable to show confidence, or self-control.”

[15:17] Thunderf00t: Not only that, but in your feminist world, ‘strong’ is only a favorable attribute for the masculine.

[15:25] clip: “She was strong-”

[15:27] Thunderf00t: This is just what it’s like to play this game of constantly moving goal posts, with this sort of feminism. It doesn’t matter what the game that’s made is. The conclusion will always be:

[15:46] Thunderf00t: However, the part in your video where you go from finding patterns that don’t exist, to La-La Land, is here:

[15:52] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained, socially constructed myth. Which of course, is completely false. But the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed as frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures.”

[16:09] Thunderf00t: Uuhh.BULLSHIT. You see, we are part of a sexually dimorphic species. That is, males and females, tend to have different physical characteristics. Look, the reason that we divide the Olympics up by sex, is not because we are inherently sexist. It’s because men and women tend to have different traits. On average, in the upper body strength, it’s almost fifty-percent difference. Ugh, come on. Tell me again how this is really a myth.

[16:38] clip: “The belief that women are somehow a naturally weaker gender, is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth. Which of course is completely false.”

[16:46] Thunderf00t: I’ve not seen this study yet. But I’m gonna go out there on a limb and predict that there will be no correlation whatsoever between the number of damsel-in-distress video games and the ensemble differences in the upper body strength between men and women.

[17:01] However, many who take a few seconds to read the Wiki page on ‘sexual dimorphism’ in humans, might come across this, where someone seems to be suggesting exactly that: “The smaller differences in the lower body strength may be due to the fact that during childhood, both males and females frequently exercise their leg muscles during activities like running, walking, and playing. Males, however, are socially pressured to enhance their upper body muscles, leading to a wider difference in upper body strength” (Wikipedia, “Sexual Dimorphism)

[17:31] But this is the cute thing—when you actually take a closer look at those references, and you find this: “The Gender and Science Reader brings together the key writings by leading scholars to provide a comprehensive feminist analysis of the nature and practice of science.”

And just, take that to heart for a second. A ‘feminist analysis’. Not an objective analysis. Not a scientific analysis. A feminist analysis.

[17:59] Now let’s compare that to some of the other studies like: “One study of muscle strength at the elbows and knees—in 45 and older males and females—found the strength of females to range from 42 to 63% of male strength. Another study found men to have significantly higher hand-grip strength than women, even when comparing untrained men with female athletes” (Wikipedia, “Sexual Dimorphism”)

Hmm. And both of those from peer-reviewed scientific journals. I think I’m almost to the point where I can track down the difference between objective scientific research, and feminist research.

[18:37] clip:“As you might imagine, this project requires an enormous amount of research.”

[18:40] Thunderf00t: I’m now also firmly of the opinion that one of these has a place to be taught in schools. And the other, doesn’t. I also note in passing, Anita, that you have disabled comments and ratings on your video. Which, has become the standard line of people on YouTube who peddle bullshit that cannot stand up to public scrutiny. I also note the reason you say you’re doing this, is a claim of victimhood. But let me offer you an alternative suggestion. The pushback you get, might mention that you’re a woman.

[19:12] clip: “I’m a woman.”

[19:13] Thunderf00t: But it’s not because you’re a woman. The pushback that you get might mention that you’re a feminist.

[19:20] clip: “I am a feminist

[19:21] Thunderf00t: But it’s not because you’re a feminist. Now the reason you get this pushback, as, I hope this video has amply explained, is because what you say is bollocks”